1836 - Robert Kelsey Wylie was born in Tishomingo County, Mississippi. After moving to Anderson County, Texas, with his parents around 1850, he worked building brick chimneys, labor for which he accepted cattle as payment. With his brothers he started a ranch in Erath County and, in 1862, helped formed Picketville, at the site of the future Ballinger, in Runnels County. He ranched in Coleman County during the Civil War. In 1865 he began driving cattle to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, a business he continued for ten years. He established cattle ranches near Ballinger and at Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River. He also started a sheep ranch near Van Horn. At various times he supplied cattle to John S. Chisum and to the foundation herd of the Matador Ranch. He retired to Mineral Wells by 1905.
1849 – Fort Worth was established along the Trinity River, at the same site as present-day Fort Worth. It was one of ten forts marking the western Texas frontier. Brevet major Ripley Allen Arnold, was given command of Company F of the Second Dragoons after the Mexican War and ordered to northern Texas to establish a military post "at or near the confluence of the West Fork and the Clear Fork of the Trinity River." In the latter part of May 1849, after locating a suitable site for the new camp, he left Fort Graham with forty-two dragoons and proceeded to the Trinity, where, on June 6, 1849, he established Camp Worth, which he named after his former commander, who had recently died of cholera in San Antonio. With a portable, horse-powered sawmill his company constructed a barracks, a mess hall, a commissary, an infirmary, stables, and a smithy. Camp Worth, later named Fort Worth, was completed by mid-winter of 1849.
1936 - The Central Centennial Exposition, part of the Texas Centennial celebration marking 100 years of Texas independence, opened in Dallas's Fair Park. The official $25 million central exposition occupied fifty buildings and was the first world's fair held in the Southwest.
1944 - D-day, James Earl Rudder commanded the Second Ranger Battalion as it achieved one of the great feats of arms of the Normandy invasion. Rudder, a native of Eden, Texas, had served in the army in the 1930s and was recalled to duty during World War II. He became commander and trainer of the elite Second Ranger Battalion in 1943. On D-day Rudder's Rangers stormed the beach at Pointe du Hoc and, under constant enemy fire, scaled 100-foot cliffs to reach and destroy German gun batteries. The battalion suffered higher than 50 percent casualties, and Rudder himself was wounded twice. In spite of this, he and his men helped establish a beachhead for the Allied forces. In later life Rudder became president of Texas A&M. In 1967 he received the Distinguished Service Medal from President Lyndon Johnson.
1957 - Attorney General Will Wilson raids Galveston to close down gambling.
2006 - Houston born, William Everett "Billy" Preston died. John Lennon and Paul McCartney considered making him a fifth member of the Beatles. His friendship with the Beatles continued for many years. He is best remembered for a string of smash hits which include "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "Nothing from Nothing". He died at Scottsdale, Arizona at the age of 59.
